Disney management and staff have worked directly with trappers contracted through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to remove them.
The majority of nuisance gators taken from Disney are euthanized and sold for their hide and meat, according to FWC spokesperson Tammy Sapp.
Travel agency owner Gina Parsley, 33, said her family stayed at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort last month and remembers her 9-year-old daughter Gabriella spotting an alligator peeking from the water.
In order for an alligator to be considered a nuisance within the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program, it must be at least 4 feet long and pose a threat to people, pets and property.
The removal of the nuisance gators from Disney properties doesn’t have a significant impact on the population, according to Deby Cassill, the integrative biology associate campus chair at the University of South Florida.
Samantha Crociata, a 36-year-old baker, began going to the Disney parks at the age of 3, and now brings her little ones, 2-year-old Ellie and 7-year old Rosie, with her.
It’s within the carnivore’s nature to attack anything within about a 6-foot distance, she said.
The severely depleted American Alligator population in the mid-20th century was revived following the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966.